Hi. I have been meaning to make a post about the new Hooker black hart crossmember. Hooker designed it to help you install a gen3 hemi in your 87-96 Dodge Dakota. Ok my story starts with, after I installed hooker long tube headers on the 360 magnum engine in my 91 Dakota sport. After I got the headers installed I noticed I only had a few inches of room between the header flange and the transmission Crossmember. No room to install a exhaust system etc with out hacking up the crossmember. I didn't want to do that, so I started searching for aftermarket ones. I found out that holley started making them to mount a gen3 hemi and let you run up to a true 3 inch dual exhaust system. Holley only list it working with the hemi engine, the crossmember with transmission adapter plate and poly mount I think at the time was around $350. I wasn't sure if it would work with my magnum 360/904 engine set. But I decide to take a chance and found out.wellafter mounting everything up, I found if I redrilled twi holes on thr left side crossmember mount that everything would bolt up and work great. Also I found out if holley would of added two more inches of metal to the back of the transmission adapter plate. I could of just redrilled the holes in the plate . Here are some pictures of the factory mount with long tube headers and then the hooker set up with same headers + 18 inch header exstions. Also here is a link to the hooker crossmember..

https://highhorseperformance.com/ho...ember-for-87-96-dodge-dakota-2wd-bhs545/

Pics of the hooker black hart installed

Very nice clean install. Thanks for the research and posting your results.

I used the Holley cross member and their mount for the 72-93 D trucks to swap a NV4500 into my 74 W200 (divorced transfer case). Pretty much bolted right in. I had to clearance the frame lower flange a little for bolt head clearance but that was it. I also made brackets that go from the upper frame flange to the cross member for additional support then used the Holley 46RH mount adapter plate to bolt the transfer case shifter to the cross member. I don't have pics of the upper brackets. I welded 2 pieces of 1x1 angle to either side of each hump with support straps to the frame rail and a piece of 1/8 x 4" wide flat stock welded to the straps to keep them square.

This particular unit looks like it will work (with minor mods) on an all stock 2WD Dakota with the goal of running true dual exhaust off from the manifolds....or headers.